There are three major things that I look for. The first is that it is undoubtedly tier one, as per Gartner. This lowers the risk of product performance. Dynatrace has a good presence from an APM perspective, application performance perspective, where it can be easily configured.

There are many adapters and solutions available in the market. In every organization, like ours, there are a few more built-in adapters.

From an enterprise perspective, due to the higher cost, higher stability, and several considerations for high-level architecture, I take care of security perspectives, providing a stable solution.

For system integrators, it is good from an operational perspective since there are many SLAs, so larger organizations generally opt for tier one solutions where they can have fewer operational issues, avoiding SLA penalties.

Graduation features offered by Dynatrace provide a single view and can connect with many other monitoring systems. Importantly, it delivers real-time insights.

Additionally, Dynatrace positively impacts my organization in various ways.

There may be an issue since there are many tools like Splunk involved in network monitoring. From an IP perspective, Dynatrace is performing well. If they want to develop in network monitoring, they can, as it's part of their product line. It's not rocketry, so they can accomplish it. If I, as an SI, look at it from an enterprise perspective, considering the cost from the client, I prefer not to go with multiple systems, as they don't provide a complete 360-degree view. They need to improve on claims about being an enterprise system. The definition of enterprise is loosely used, however, from a holistic security perspective, including infrastructure, network, ports, software, applications, transactions, and databases, there are areas lacking, especially in network monitoring tools.

I have used the solution for the last four years, just for four years only.

Stability depends on the deployment, the person deploying it, and how the configuration is done. Generally, all are stable at ninety-nine point nine nine percent, but if the underlying infrastructure is not deployed correctly, stability may be problematic. This is a very relative term, and no software can exist alone at ninety-nine point nine percent. If the infrastructure doesn't support it, it cannot exist as standalone. Deployment location, whether in triple nine data centers, double nine data centers, or other types, also matters. If power is lost, stability is affected, depending on how it's deployed.

Scalability is easy. All opportunities work on the agent number and server transactions that need monitoring. If you include those things, some are agent-based, and some are agentless. The monitoring is done based on licenses, like tier or enterprise licenses. It depends on what the client is looking for. If it's an enterprise, increasing the number of instances doesn’t pose problems.

Their support system is good. I would rate them at 9.5 out of ten. People generally don't pursue it since it's a monitoring system itself. They have a good reputation, and the support is commendable. People are helpful, even with delivery and other related aspects. I use their excellent support system.

Anand, this is reflective work. These setups are complex, meaning significant thought is required. It's a relative aspect, however, developers could have clearer insights. Today, products in the market are packaged, just requiring configuration. Collecting logs, tagging events, and other aspects are relatively straightforward and not considered complex.

Determining ROI is subjective. Monitoring is passive, merely aiding business processes and not active within them. ROI is hard to specify; however, incidents like impending ransomware attacks highlight its value, though those are exceptional events. Return on investment in predictive analytics and AI tools is minimal, given the passive nature of these systems.

Clients sometimes opt for alternatives based on budget constraints. If the budget is small, tier two solutions like Elasticsearch may be considered. It varies by location, like in Singapore, where tier two solutions are viable options.

I give the solution nine out of ten. Enterprises typically choose Dynatrace, especially when the IT system budget is around a $100 to $200 million. Investing an additional $120 million makes sense. If your system is worth $50 million, the investment doesn’t exceed 1.2%. ROI considerations are tied to observability, dependent on how the business values these aspects.

We use Dynatrace as an end-to-end monitoring solution to monitor all our cloud and on-premises infrastructure and applications. We use Dynatrace to monitor everything except storage, backup, and network devices. Our e-commerce front-end applications are completely monitored on Dynatrace.

I like the solution's tracing feature. There's a technology called PurePath in Dynatrace that helps us trace the end-to-end request for a service call. It starts tracing or capturing from the moment a user accesses our website, opens the browser, and clicks on login till it reaches our endpoint, the application server with the database server.

It will capture all the traces, including the number of requests, the response time, the number of calls made, the number of errors, and the root cause of each error. Dynatrace provides real user monitoring with APM.

Dynatrace is not great for network monitoring. Network monitoring can be done with a bit of customization. Although it provides end-to-end tracing from server to application, you don't get end-to-end tracing for network devices because it uses the SNMP protocol to discover them.

It will not get coordinated with the Dynatrace agent. That protocol is entirely different. It would be good if Dynatrace could come up with some feature that can help us pull the network tracing along with the application tracing. Dynatrace could improve the visualization part in log analytics because it is not as great as Splunk.

Dynatrace does very good monitoring for Azure cloud monitoring, but for GCP, it is not as great as Azure. The solution should improve from Google Cloud monitoring.

I have been using Dynatrace for six years.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

The solution's technical support is very good and very much available.

The solution's initial setup is very simple. You never get any monitoring tool as simple as Dynatrace. You just have to deploy one agent, and it's very straightforward.

Dynatrace is easy to install and manage. It is simple and saves a lot of time. It is quite easy to manage, and anyone with basic IT knowledge can be a Dynatrace administrator.

Dynatrace is an expensive solution.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is expensive and ten is cheap, I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten.

Datadog is Dynatrace's main competitor. It is cheaper than Dynatrace. However, Datadog's instrumentation is manual and time-consuming, and it requires a lot of effort. In contrast, Dynatrace can be set up in half an hour. Setting up Datadog requires a lot of manual effort and is not as easy as Dynatrace. Presentation-wise, Datadog's look and feel are not as impressive as Dynatrace's.

Technology keeps evolving. In my experience, we recently migrated our application from Azure VM to microservices hosted in Kubernetes. Some requirements were there, especially with GCP. Using the solution does not depend on the company size but on the requirement. Whoever uses an e-commerce ordering website must have Dynatrace. I would recommend Dynatrace to other users.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We have been working with Dynatrace primarily for observability. We utilize the solution across various industries, including retail, financial services, insurance, and manufacturing. Our focus is to provide comprehensive monitoring and observability as part of our managed service provider (MSP) offerings. We offer extensive customization and value addition to the data provided by Dynatrace.

The solution enables us to deliver tailored services to our customers, including generating customized measurements, KPIs, and dashboards. This enhances our ability to provide detailed and valuable insights to our clients.

The observability provided by Dynatrace is extremely valuable. It allows us to achieve transparency and gain comprehensive insights into our operations.

The pricing model of Dynatrace is somewhat confusing. Currently, the industry is adapting to a consumption-based pricing model instead of a traditional licensing model, which might take some time to get used to.

We have three years of experience working with Dynatrace.

The scalability of Dynatrace is extremely easy.

I cannot provide specific details about their technical support as I am not in charge of that aspect.

Our company adds substantial value to the solution, making the pricing fair and providing significant value-added services to our clients.

The shift to a consumption-based pricing model from a licensing model is something new. Customers need to adapt to paying per consumption.

The value of Dynatrace is in its observability feature, but understanding the pricing model can be intricate. Ensure you have a good grasp of how the consumption-based model works.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

The solution is predominantly used for application performance monitoring.

The solution's most valuable features are AI and root cause analysis. These two features maintain a chain of dependencies so that everyone knows about the things that depend on each other across all the parts of this application.

The solution's user interface could be improved. Because of the browser metaphor, you must click multiple times, which is not as slick as a purpose-designed user interface.

I have been using Dynatrace for a few years.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.